Lie Chen showed his might, the strange sea came alive

The collar of Lie Chen's black fighting clothes hung slightly open, revealing a sliver of collarbone covered in fine black markings. The patterns flowed like water, slipping beneath his jaw from the side of his neck.

His face was young, his features refined, his lips pale, as though he had not seen sunlight for years. But those eyes...

Zhao Canghai lowered his gaze after a single glance. Those pupils were an unfathomable ink-black, with only the faintest blue-gray tint in the whites.

"Hall Master Zhao."

Lie Chen did not turn. His voice was low, vibrating from his chest, heavy and unnaturally hard. "Retreat thirty zhang. Hold your breath, seal your hearing, and stop looking."

Zhao Canghai's throat bobbed. "This is..."

"The Goldblood has come alive." Lie Chen turned his head slightly, and the black markings on his face seemed to stir. "Keep looking, and the cold pool in your Sea of Qi will turn into molten gold."

Zhao Canghai's heart shuddered.

Only then did he notice that the murky golden fluid pouring from the two giant demons' severed feelers had not seeped into the cracks after falling onto the reefs. It was writhing.

Countless minute golden insects swam and gathered in the pools of blood, devouring one another. They crawled over the reefs, spreading toward the Cold River like a layer of living golden moss.

Wherever they passed, even the frost patterns Zhao Canghai had left behind turned pale gold, and that color was still deepening, brightening.

On the Cold River, the ice splashed with Goldblood gave off faint sizzling sounds. It was not melting. It was undergoing some far stranger assimilation.

Zhao Canghai could look no longer.

Forcing himself to muster his last thread of Magic Power, he drifted backward and landed on the broken seawall several dozen zhang